How to apply before_filter to every action of every controller in Rails 3.2.11?

Question

I'd like to verify if the user is logged in on every single request to the server.

Something like:

:before_filter verify_logged_in

Where should I put that before_filter so it applies to all controller actions and all requests?

Answer 1

To ensure that filters apply to all actions, place it in the application_controller.rb.

Answer 2

Application Controller is the base class of all other classes.

If you put any filter in this class then the flow works as follows:

If you hit url say of users resource with any action say index action then:

The control first goes to Application Controller. There it checks for filters, if finds any then it executes the filter method and after that it goes to index action of users controller.

Application Controller:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  protect_from_forgery

  before_filter :verify_logged_in

end

Other Controller:

class UsersController < ApplicationController

  def index

  end

Here in the above code you see that the other controller is inheriting the contents of parent controller which is application controller. So if you put before_filter in the application controller then for every user it will verify if the user is logged in for each request.